$100 in 1947 is worth $326 in 1979,
because prices increased 225.6% over that period, an average of
3.76% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$326
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
225.6%
Average inflation rate
3.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$326
Price difference ($100 base)
$226
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1947 → 1979
$326
$100 in 1979 → 1947
$30.72
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1979
Between 1947 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 225.6%, which works out to an average of
3.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.31 buys in 1979: the 1947 dollar
lost 69.3% of its purchasing power over
these 32 years.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1947 amount converts to 1979 at the same ratio, 3.26: $1,000 becomes
$3,256, and $10,000 becomes $32,556.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1979
$1.00
$3.26
$5.00
$16.28
$10.00
$32.56
$20.00
$65.11
$50.00
$163
$100
$326
$500
$1,628
$1,000
$3,256
$5,000
$16,278
$10,000
$32,556
$100,000
$325,561
$1,000,000
$3,255,605
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1979
Between 1947 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 400.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 112.8%, against 225.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.76%
$326
Medical care
5.16%
$500
Transportation
4.27%
$381
Food
3.82%
$332
Apparel
2.39%
$213
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1947: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1947 to 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1979 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1947, at end
1947–1950
2.62%
8.1%
$108
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$133
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$174
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$326
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $137 by
1963, on its way to $326 in 1979; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.3% in 1979, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1979
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $326; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1979: $100 is worth $326 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1979/